The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury

Read: Sep 2025

Meaningful reflection on what it means to be alien.

The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls

Read: Feb 2025

Raw and unflinching. Walls’ restraint makes the chaos hit harder. Loved the honesty without self‑pity.

The Four

Scott Galloway

Read: Feb 2025

Entertaining and punchy, even when I disagreed. Good framing for business moats and platform dynamics.

Deep Work

Cal Newport

Read: Jan 2025

Tactical enough to try immediately. Biggest takeaway: treat focus like a skill with reps, not a mood.

Prediction Machines

Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb

Read: Feb 2025

Clear mental model: when prediction gets cheap, complements (data, judgment, action) become the bottleneck.

Information Doesn't Want to Be Free

Cory Doctorow

Read: Feb 2025

Great lens on creator economics and DRM. Opinionated, but forced me to clarify where I stand.

Flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Read: Mar 2025

Classic for a reason. The challenge‑skill balance clicked; I started structuring work blocks around it.

The Giver

Lois Lowry

Read: Mar 2025

Short and eerie. Hits different as an adult—memory and meaning vs engineered comfort.

The Sun Also Rises

Ernest Hemingway

Read: Mar 2025

Atmosphere > plot. The restraint and subtext carry it; not fast, but sticks with you.

Grokking Algorithms

Aditya Bhargava

Read: Mar 2025

Good visual intuition for fundamentals. Useful as a quick refresher before touching code.